It was great to read so early on into the winter months that Mark Farmer has indeed decided to go public and confirm his continued participation within the British GT Championship into his fourth season and also continue his association with Tom Ferrier's TF Sport in the process for 2019.

Speaking with Farmer at the #DoningtonDecider, a race that he and co driver Nicki Thiim won and then didn't - loosing out to the Barwell team in the process, was that he was already sure that he would be back in to British GT fold having tested the new variant of turbo charged Vantage GT3 at Snetterton back in August - the only unknown then (and still is) around who his co driver would be.

Farmer is a driver who has traditionally purchased his race cars outright, like he did when he first started in GT3's with 22GT Racing and into his tenure at TF Sport and his purchase of the new Vantage GT3 is no different this time either.

“I am excited to re-commit to the British GT Championship for 2019,” Mark stated. “The racing is super-close; the Pro line-up is stellar and the occasions magnificent. We had a great run with the Aston Martin Vantage, and in particular in the last season, with three race wins three podiums from nine starts.

“Sadly, it wasn’t enough to win the Championship, but It was good to take the fight to the wire,” he continued. “We consistently demonstrated our pace but were thwarted by bad luck in a couple of rounds, including a big fire at Spa which almost killed the car!

There has been no official word from Aston Martin Racing whether or not they would make any of their factory drivers available again to their customer teams in 2019. The calendars between the British GT and the World Endurance Championship suggests that it is possible but even Nicki Thiim would like to see a reduction of his own driving commitments after a hectic 2018.

With the new Vantage GT3's not likely to be delivered to the teams until the end of 2018 at the earliest little more can be done by the team or driver to prepare themselves but after all the announcements at Donington of so and so ordering two of those and one of these new AMR's - at least we now know who will be driving one of them and in what!

Also being reported today was the apparent position of 2018 British GT GT3 Champion Flick Haigh not returning to the championship in 2019 to defend her title.

Having also spoken with Shaun Goff (boss of Optimum Motorsport) at Donington last month, he did acknowledge that all avenues allowing 'progressive steps' were being considered by Haigh and the team including European GT3 and indeed GTE racing.

Optimum has acknowledged that they have signed up for two new AMR Vantage GT3's and that you can only purchase a GT3 with a GTE upgrade kit rather than a built GTE platform, so either options could be possible for her.

Whereas Mark Farmer today declared a firm intention participate, todays story of Haigh already not defending her BGT crown just seemed a bit early although Optimum's PR team have since come back to confirm the story to be correct which is a shame!